Meet the Team - Emberly Chimney Cleaners Rancho Cucamonga

Meet the Rancho Cucamonga Team Behind Emberly Chimney Cleaners Rancho Cucamonga

We’re the crew that shows up in Rancho Cucamonga with a vacuum, a camera, and a printed price sheet already in hand. Between us, we’ve crawled through attics in Etiwanda during 110-degree August afternoons and cleared ice dams off crowns in the foothills after rare winter storms. What keeps us together isn’t a handbook. It’s Clause 1 of the Haven Standard: have it in writing, every time, before anyone touches your flue.

Our People

Corrine Halstead, Owner

I started Emberly Chimney Cleaners in 2009 after watching a homeowner in Alta Loma pay $4,200 for a “necessary” liner replacement that a camera scan later showed was structurally sound. That was the last time I let a customer take a contractor’s word without documented evidence. I hold NFPA 211 Level 2 certification and personally review every photo record before it goes to the homeowner. My desk is covered in ceramic chimney pots I’ve collected from demolished Victorians in the Inland Empire, and I can tell you the exact year Rancho Cucamonga switched from clay tile to stainless steel as the dominant liner material. Hint: it tracks with when the 210 freeway expansion finished and new construction shifted east.

Marcus T., Lead Technician

Marcus has been running sweeps since 2014, which in this trade means he’s seen the full evolution from mirror-and-flashlight inspections to the camera rigs we use now. He’s the technician we assign to Rancho Cucamonga’s older homes, the 1970s and 1980s builds in the foothills where clearance to combustibles was often eyeballed rather than measured. Marcus holds CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep credential and specializes in smoke chamber parging, the process of smoothing the corbelled brick area above your firebox that most homeowners have never heard of and most sweeps skip because it’s miserable, cramped work. He owns three rescued pit bulls and brings the same patience to a snarling Class III creosote buildup that he does to a nervous rescue.

Diana R., Senior Installer

Diana handles our liner installations, crown pours, and rebuilds across San Bernardino County. She came to us from commercial HVAC, which means she reads a spec sheet the way some people read menus: thoroughly, with follow-up questions. Her specialty is HeatShield cerfractory flue sealant applications, a resurfacing system for deteriorated clay tile liners that lets us restore rather than replace when the damage is surface-level. Diana is the one who will tell you, plainly, whether your spalling brick needs a rebuild or just a proper cap with an overhang that actually sheds water. She commutes from Fontana and has strong opinions about which Inland Empire coffee shops open before 6 a.m., opinions she will share unprompted.

Javier L., Service Coordinator

Javier answers the phones, schedules the routes, and sends the “your technician is en route” texts that Rancho Cucamonga customers receive on sweep day. He’s the reason our live-answer rate stays at 100% during business hours and why someone who calls at 10 p.m. about a smoking fireplace actually reaches a person who can dispatch help. Javier maintains our job documentation system, which means every photo record from every visit since 2009 is searchable by address, date, or technician. He grew up in Ontario and still lives there, which means he understands the local dispatch realities: traffic on the 15, the difference between a Rancho Cucamonga foothills address and a Victoria Gardens condo, and why you don’t schedule crown work during Santa Ana wind warnings.

Aisha K., Apprentice Technician

Aisha joined us in 2023 after completing her mechanical engineering coursework at Chaffey College and deciding she preferred working with her hands to sitting in a cubicle. She’s currently completing her CSIA certification under Marcus’s supervision and has already developed a reputation for meticulous flue measurements, the kind that prevent liner sizing errors that plague less careful outfits. Aisha handles most of our standard chimney sweep and inspection appointments in the newer construction areas of Rancho Cucamonga, the 2000s-era developments where factory-built fireplaces dominate and the issues are usually cap, crown, or clearance-related rather than masonry decay. She lives in North Fontana and is apparently attempting to visit every hiking trail in the San Gabriel Mountains, a project she documents with the same thoroughness she applies to her photo records.

One Standard, Every Job

The Haven Standard was built from what we learned across 38,000 chimney inspections and cleanings, and it travels with every technician we send to a Rancho Cucamonga home. Clause 1 means your written price, scope, and warranty arrive before work starts, not after a truck is parked in your driveway. Clause 4 means the photo record Marcus or Aisha creates during your NFPA 211 Level 2 inspection is archived and available to you, not locked in a proprietary system or offered as a premium upsell. The 365-Day Done Right Promise is stamped on every invoice because Corrine still remembers the homeowner who paid for invisible work and had no recourse.

We’re independently owned and operated, not a franchise, which means the person who answers your call in Rancho Cucamonga reports to the same owner who reviews the photo record and signs off on the warranty. If you bring us a competitor’s written estimate, we’ll give you a free second opinion with our own camera evidence. That’s not a marketing line. It’s how we’ve operated since 2009.

Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Emberly Chimney Cleaners Rancho Cucamonga, serving Rancho Cucamonga since 2009.